April 28, 2015 - 14:21
TUESDAY
I am grateful that Theresa has put us inside for this beginning as it goes right along in line of how I think this class should be structured.
Location: Classroom
We start with Maddie who said this:
- I will be thinking about access to topics and conversations that are generally geared towards people with a certain level of education. I will be doing this through a math magic trick. I think the value in having something accessible is it allows people to dip their feet into something but still being comfortable, possibly allowing them to go off and learn more about that specific topic.
- In her ~8 minutes, Maddie explores accessibility in traditional disciplines through joy not often seen in the classroom. It is fitting, then, that her portion of the teach in is situated here, that the joy of learning outside of demonstration of understanding for the sake of production is possible in such a rigid structure.
Following that, Marian, Abby, and Ariel have a different take on how the traditional classroom can be used. By preferring indoors, they insert physicality into a very theoretical space.
- Marian, Abby, Ariel: dance/theater workshop (20 minutes)
~30min
At this point, we venture outside, led by Caleb, who talked about interconnectedness here: (~15 minutes)
- I believe there are ways to engaging with the world by intertwining them, but that these ways require alternative thinking that looks outside the boxes we live in. The combination of these knowledges, read out loud and shared together, might be a step towards a re-valuing of the theoretical and applied, loosening them from the binaries of nature/culture, good/evil, intellectual/commonplace, complex/simple, big/small, worthy/unworthy, in our own shared contexts.
- Caleb's project is about the freedom of learning, and how important a lack of structure can be for connecting with the world around us, so here, I don't give Caleb any structure other than that it must end in 15 minutes and end at a place that we may sit and talk
I interject here to place my own project. How can we represent the learning done in this Teach in? In academic language, what would our course description be? How might we explain this all to children? What simple story, image, or representation could they understand? How can we represent all we have to give in such a small place? I ask us to have a conversation that brings in Tosin's project: (~10minutes):
I'm thinking we could make a group collage or art or thing. It could have pictures in it or whatever. Or our thoughts about the class. Something that kind of reflects us as a whole on a single sheet of paper. Along the lines of what Teresa is doing, but only one sheet for the entire group. Then we could put in a special weatherproof box/container that I will bring and walk into Morris Woods and put in a special spot and submit it to be marked as a geocahce.
- This box is small, but must contain some representation of what we have to learn here. What can we put inside of it? How can we represent our class, ourselves, and all we have learned? Is this possible? Even if it isn't, we're going to try. Questions to think about: where will we put it? What is it? What does it mean? What will people who encounter it think?
- Post this by midnight on Wednesday.
THURSDAY
Tosin situates us in the classroom
Both Liz and Theresa give us all a way to interact with their projects.
Liz talks about hers here:
- the first idea is to give each person a piece of paper with a specific word (both some random and some that were discussed in class). They would write whatever associated word comes first into their mind and then pass the paper on to the next person, rotating around until they are back to havin their own paper again.
Theresa suggests doing a similar thing:
- Everyone will sit in a circle
I will hand everyone some paper
Everyone writes a sentence (perhaps something ecological) on the first page
Everyone will pass it to the person to their right
Then that person will try to draw whatever that sentence is (1 minute drawing time)
After 1 minute has passed, everyone will pass it again to the right
Then the next person will write another sentence to describe what the drawing is...
Repeat till everyone gets their own "paper" back
Joni's will be happening @ the same time....
3:15-3:25 A semi silent gallery with Amala and Celeste who write about it here:
- For our teach-in, Celeste and I decided to combine the outside/inside idea she had with photography (that I had wanted to do). We are going to take a series of pictures where outside objects are placed inside, and inside objects are placed outside and then put them up in class for people to reflect on. We are then going to ask them to write a few words/phrases/sentences on what their first thoughts are on seeing the images. Whether it causes them to reflect more on the objects being 'misplaced,' or whether the person in the image's emotions are more influential than the 'misplacing.
2:45-2:55: Rosa's project, which she outlines here
2:25-2:45: We figure out how to fill, and then place, Tosin's geocache.
3:25-3:35 Reflecting on what we did (over the semester, in this teach-in)
3:35-3:45: completing course evals...